Steadfast Endurance (Revelation 2:2)

I know your works---I mean your hard work and your steadfast endurance . . .

The Risen Christ praises their steadfast endurance. Here is the word hupomone which we have come upon again and again. It is not the grim patience which resignedly accepts things. It is the courageous gallantry which accepts suffering and hardship and turns them into grace and glory. It is often said that suffering colors life; but when we meet life with hupomone which Christ can give, the color of life is never grey or black; it is always tinged with glory. ---(from the Revelation of John, William Barclay, p. 62)